How To – bone and butterfly a leg of lamb

hi I’m Pete from Jamie’s food team and
today I’m going to show you how to bone
and butterfly a leg of lamb now this is
the lamb the way
I’ve got a nice chopping board here with
a cloth under it so that it won’t move a
bite which is really important when you
start chopping because you want boards
stay in one place so that you don’t cut
yourself now the end of this here I’m
just going to take off there’s sometimes
another bone on here called the H bone
that’s been taken off today
but if it’s there you can ask your
butcher to take that off for you you can
actually ask your butcher to do this
whole thing for you
if you like but if you want to have a go
yourself it’s really not that difficult
this is the leg there’s only really two
bones in here the bone goes from here to
here and there’s what knuckle in the
middle like that which is the lounge
knee so the bone goes up like that and
like that so really what we’ll do we
just cut into the lamb and excavate the
bone take it out and then we’ll have the
meat boneless ready to butterfly so the
best knife to do this with its a boning
knife this is the way it looks not
everyone has this knife at home a
specially shaped to help you cut meat
it’s really rigid so it’s hard to bend
which is great for cutting through meat
and scraping against bone but if you
don’t have one of those just a small
sharp knife will do the trick so that’s
a paring knife and it’s got a rigid
blade so it doesn’t Bend very easily and
we’re going to have a go with this today
I’m going to make a cut from the knee
which is this bit here up to the tip of
the bone sticking out so just imagine
where the bone will be and make you cut
down to it now you can see the knee and
you can see the top of the bone here so
you know where to cut open the lamb up
like that and with a couple of cuts it’s
quite easy to find the bone and there is
there you can see that’s it in there
and really only do is cut around it one
thing to remember is always keep your
fingers behind where you’re cutting
never put your fingers in stop cutting
like that I know it sounds obvious but
when you get really involved in it and
you concentrate on it it’s quite easy to
do something stupid so always keep your
hand behind the knife so if it slips the
worst you’re going to do is make it
cutting the meat but not your finger
seeing the more you go the more you
can’t the more you expose the bone until
you’ve got a lot of it open like that
you see then you were underneath the
bone free it like this but then don’t
worry it’s a bit ragged you can trim
that up later and you see now bones
start to come out there you go
okay no next we start to loosen the meat
around the edge there we go
taste a little couple of try sometimes
for you finding the right bit so as you
can see now you’ve got the bone here
this bit here is called the shank we’re
not going to use this bit of meat today
on the grill it’s quite a tough bit of
meat and it’s it’s actually much better
for long still cooking so what I do with
this is just cut it off wrap it up put
it in the fridge and save it for a SKU
or SKU lamb shanks or something like
that but it’s not much use to us today
so I’ll cut it off another two bits of
meat this is the main bit of meat we’re
going to slash and butterfly and here
here’s your two bones and this is the
shank
so if you find where the joint is
why is there cut off there you go
this is a nice bone for sticking as a
trivet when you’re roasting your leg of
lamb I mean you’re not going to roast it
this time but next time it might be
great to chuck that in the train as well
so wrap it up and cling film put it to
one side put it in the freezer and
you’ll be really glad you did next time
you roast a leg of lamb this is the
shank so you can wrap that in cling film
stick it in the freezer and once you
have three or four of them you can cut
them off with a nice slow lamb shanks to
you delicious
okay this is the main piece of meat from
the leg of lamb and you can you know you
can put it together quite easily and see
where the bone Wars where the shank was
and really all we want to do is open it
out and make it stay opened out if you
just put it like this on the grill when
it gets hot it will curl up again and it
won’t cook properly so if you open it
out and then butterfly it it means that
when it goes on the grill it’ll stay
that shape and that’s what you want that
means that cook nice and evenly so first
thing if you see any big lumps of fat
see like this bit here you just just
take that off and also you’d only cut
all of that off because that’s actually
quite a good thing in me helps it stay
moist as it’s cooking it’s got great
flavor so don’t trim all the fat just
any big lumps that you see they use bits
okay
still a bit of fat on but that’s good
I’m going to get rid of these scraps and
here’s your leg of lamb already it’s
sitting better laying out a bit better
and it’s less likely now to curl up but
the next stage is to make sure that it
cooks evenly it needs to be the same
kind of thickness because if you look at
this lamb now if you look at it side on
you’ll see that this bits one height
this bits another height and this was
even higher so there’s three different
heights here of lamb and of course when
you put on a BBQ this is where the first
fit to be
this will be the second bit to be cooked
and there’s to be the third bit to be
cooked because it takes so long for the
heat to rise through the meat and that’s
not ideal because you want it all really
the same don’t you however you want to
cook whether it’s well-done whether its
medium whether it’s pink you want it all
to be cooked the same so what we’re
going to do now is try to make the lamb
and even thickness all the way across
sort of cooked in the same time this fit
here this fat lump of meat is actually a
top side I’m going to cut into that and
open it up like a book you see the idea
is to do it really evenly in half so
when you open it out the two sides are
the same thickness think of it as
opening a book in exactly the middle
page now be careful not to cut all the
way through because you want to cut this
bit off you want to keep it attached the
middle bit slightly higher than that now
so what I’m going to do is make a few
slashes in it it will open out a little
bit and end up being the same height as
that and the same for this bit here
it’ll squash down a bit and these cuts
help what helps marinate penetrate the
meat so when whatever you put on it
whether its own garlic or lemon or oil
or pepper or spices and herbs they’ll
penetrate the meat much better if the
slashes in it and of course when it goes
on the grill the heat will penetrate it
faster and it’ll cook much more evenly
so now the lamb is all basically the
same thickness or it’s got slashes in
the thicker bits to help the heat
penetrate and it’s all going to cook at
the same time this is what you’ve got
from the inside the outside or one nice
piece so it’s easy to cook on the
barbecue you’re not fiddling around with
bits and pieces all in one piece and
that’s how to bone and butterfly a leg
of lamb
you